His Majesty's Hope (10 page)

“No!” Elise shrugged Brigitta’s hand away, as if it burned.

“You’re new—you’ll get used to it.” Brigitta spoke in gentler tones. “We all have. It’s a kindness, really. You have to think of it like that.” She turned and walked away.

Elise ran—as fast as she could, as long as her legs would hold up—to the grassy lawn. It was dark, and she ran blindly, not caring. When finally she fell, she vomited until she was unable to breathe, unable to see through her tears.
Oh, God, my God
, she prayed.
Oh, God, help me. Help us all
.

When it was time, Elise climbed back on the bus, feeling hollow and numb. Without the children, the bus seemed eerily empty and deafeningly quiet. Brigitta sat down next to her. “Remember—they’re ‘life unworthy of life.’ ‘Useless eaters.’ They take places in hospitals needed for wounded soldiers. The best young men die in war, and then the
Volk
lose the best available genes. If we don’t step in and do something, their genes will take over. The government
must
intervene, to save Germany.”

“And what about the fifth commandment?” Elise asked, looking at the painted window, unable to see. “ ‘Thou shalt not kill’?”

Brigitta’s brow furrowed. “That’s no commandment of God’s—just a Jewish lie, meant to keep us weak. We don’t need to follow it anymore. Besides, it’s not killing, it’s euthanasia.
Kinder-Euthanasie
. Operation Compassionate Death.”

“The doctors, the orderlies,” Elise said. “They’re all volunteers?”

“Yes.”

“And what would happen if they wanted to stop?”

“They’d be sent to the Eastern Front, probably. Where the commander in charge of the unit would assign them to a suicide squad.” She put her hand on Elise’s arm. “If you’re smart, you’ll keep your mouth shut. As you know, this is a top-secret program. No reveals will be tolerated.” Then, “I know, it’s difficult to accept at first, but you must get past this. Complaining is only going to bring you trouble from above.”

Elise’s ears began to ring. She thought she might be losing her mind. She closed her eyes. “
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
” she prayed silently,
“from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.…”

But where was God as the children of Charité were being murdered?
Elise wondered. She said Hail Mary after Hail Mary, and still received no answers. And felt nothing but horror and despair. She must have dropped off to sleep, but woke with a start when the bus pulled back into the parking lot of Charité, in the midmorning.

And then the thought hit her. What if God were asking the exact same thing?
What if God is asking where are we?

Back at Charité, Elise changed into her black funeral dress. She was walking out the doors of the hospital when she noticed Dr. Brandt striding from the main entrance. He was still in his white coat and SS armband.

Breaking into a run, she caught up with him on the sidewalk, her heels banging on the concrete. “Dr. Brandt,” she said breathlessly, “I need to speak with you.” The scent of car exhaust lingered in the sticky air.

Brandt looked annoyed, as though he’d heard a mosquito buzz. “I’m busy, Nurse …”

“Hess,” she reminded him, “Nurse Hess.”

“Yes, Nurse Hess.” He looked at her, now recognizing her face. He smiled. “I’m going out to get a cup of decent coffee. That fake coffee they serve in the cafeteria isn’t fit for man or beast.”

“Dr. Brandt,” Elise said, falling into step with him, “who is Nurse Aloïsa Herrmann?”

He stopped short and stared. “How do
you
know about Aloïsa Herrmann?”

Elise looked him full in the face. “It’s she who sends letters to the parents of children being shipped off to Hadamar. Whoever ‘she’ is.”

“And what do you know about Hadamar?” Dr. Brandt loomed over her.

“I know—” Elise took a shuddery breath.
God, give me strength
. “I know it’s where you’re sending children to be murdered.”

Without warning, Dr. Brandt’s hand shot out and slapped her across the face. The blow caught her off balance, sending pain rocketing through her cheekbone and skull. She staggered backward and put a hand up to her reddening skin.

“That is not for you to know! It does not concern you!”

“It
does
concern me! These are my patients! They’re being murdered and their parents are being lied to!”

“Who have you told? Who knows?” Dr. Brandt gripped her arm.

“Stop!” Elise cried. “No one!”

“Don’t interfere with what you don’t understand. If we don’t rid ourselves of these … 
lice
, they will multiply and compromise the entire body. This isn’t about morality—it’s about delousing. Genetic hygiene. The mercy killing of the sick, weak, and deformed is far more decent, and in truth a thousand times more humane, than to support a race of degenerates.”

Four SS officers approached. Two pulled out guns while the other two forced Elise up against a wall. The rough mortar between the bricks scraped her back. She heard the clicks of two safeties being released.

“Everything all right here, Herr Doktor?” one of the officers asked.

There was a beat, a curious moment in time, when all of them knew that life or death was hanging in the balance. It stretched on forever and yet passed in an instant.

“Yes, let her go,” Dr. Brandt answered. “She is young—just a misunderstanding. Yes, Nurse Hess? I know who your mother is, and I would be most unhappy to tell her of your unprofessional behavior today.”

“Jawohl,”
she managed, her voice cracking.

The two officers released her and turned toward Brandt.
“Heil Hitler!”
they said, raising their arms in sharp salute.

“Heil Hitler!”
Dr. Brandt replied, arm raised.

She slid down onto the pavement as her legs crumpled beneath her.

The officers continued along the sidewalk, and Dr. Brandt resumed his mission to find decent coffee without looking back.

I’m lifting my eyes to the hills now, Lord
, Elise thought.
And I’ll do everything in my power to make this stop, but I’d appreciate some help, all right?

When she was finally able to stand and walk, Elise realized she didn’t want to go home. And she couldn’t bear to go back to the hospital. Then a word came to her—
sanctuary
. She began walking, across the Spree, and then to the church, not far from the Brandenburg Gate. She needed to talk to God.

Elise was no stranger to St. Hedwig’s in Berlin-Mitte. It was where she had been baptized, made her first Communion, and was confirmed, thanks to her grandmother, who’d insisted over Clara’s objections. And it was near the hospital, so she could easily go for morning Mass or evening vespers.

St. Hedwig’s, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, had an enormous verdigris dome. Inside, the dome rose to a single high window, looking down on the congregation like a great eye. An oversized, bloodred Nazi banner hung from each Corinthian column, and a gold-framed painting of Hitler presided over the altar. On a large wooden crucifix hanging from above, Jesus wept. Here and there, flickering candles from small altars pierced the darkness.

Elise entered and dabbed the fingers of her right hand into the basin of holy water, then made the sign of the cross, touching her
hand to her forehead, heart, and both shoulders, whispering,
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen.”
Then she walked down the aisle, knelt, and crossed herself again.

Looking around, Elise spotted an older woman, with thick white hair twisted into a bun, walking to a side chapel devoted to St. Michael the Archangel. In the Catholic tradition, St. Michael was considered “a great prince who stands up for the children of your people.” Elise could think of no one more appropriate to whom to pray.

She dropped a coin into a small wooden box, then took a brown wax candle, lit it, and knelt on a low needlepoint-covered riser to pray, the golden-blue flames flickering in the dim light. She prayed and prayed, crossing herself again and again. When she was done, she crossed herself one last time and stood.

“Excuse me, Frau,” she said to the other woman in the chapel, who had also finished her prayers, “have you seen Father Licht?”

“In his office, I should imagine,” the woman said. “Why, child, you’re trembling! Are you all right?”

But Elise had already walked past her, eyes unseeing. “I just need to find Father Licht.”

Father Johann Licht, Provost of the Cathedral of St. Hedwig, was in his office in the brick building behind the church itself. He had an angular face and hawklike nose, skin stretched over his hollow cheekbones into straight planes, and fine, dark hair brushed back under a black skullcap. Worry lines carved through his forehead and between his brows. He’d grown up in Ohlau, the youngest of seven brothers and sisters, studied at Innsbruck, and become a priest. Since Kristallnacht, he prayed publicly for the Jews every day at evening prayer, and was under constant surveillance by the SS.

His small office was simply furnished, with a plain wooden crucifix, a framed picture of Albrecht Dürer’s
Praying Hands
on the wall, and a yellowing Käthe Kollwitz “Never Again War!” poster tacked up next to it. Licht sat in the wan light as he went over his notes for Sunday’s homily. Elise knocked softly on the open wooden door.

“Yes?” he said, starting. Then his gaunt features warmed into a smile. “Elise! You gave me a shock! How are you?” he said, rising. “Is everything all right? Come, sit down, child.”

Elise slumped down in the straight-backed chair opposite his desk. “I fear you won’t believe me if I tell you, Father.”

“You’d be surprised at what I can believe these days.” He contemplated her face for a moment: the pallor, the seriousness of intent, the sudden aging of her young features. “Why don’t I get you a cold glass of water?” he suggested, “and then you can start at the beginning.” He poured from a pitcher on his desk.

Elise accepted the glass and sipped. Then she told her story.

When she’d finished, Father Licht rubbed his thin hands together, then took off his spectacles. “I’m sorry to say, child, that I—we—already know about this. The Nazis refer to their eugenics program internally as Operation Compassionate Death or the Children’s Euthanasia Program. It’s run through the so-called Charitable Foundation for Curative and Institutional Care.”

Elise was stunned. “You—you know already? The Church
knows
?”

“Yes, the program’s headed by Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, head of Hitler’s private chancellery, and your own Dr. Karl Brandt, who you must know is also Adolf Hitler’s personal physician.”

Licht opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a carbon copy of a letter from a folder. “Take a look at this.”

Elise read: “
I, as a human being, a Christian, a priest, and a German demand of you, Chief Physician of the Reich, that you answer for
the crimes that have been perpetrated at your bidding, and with your consent, and which will call forth the vengeance of the Lord on the heads of the German people.
” The letter was addressed to Dr. Brandt, and was from Father Johann Licht.

Elise was shocked. “And how—how did he respond?”

“He hasn’t. Just as no one has responded to our letters and telephone calls about the fate of the Jews. We’ve fallen into the hands of ‘criminals and fools,’ as Bishop von Preysing says. We’ve heard of what you’ve described happening, but the problem for us is that it’s never been substantiated. Most of the Catholic hospitals, as you know, have been closed. And the nuns who were nurses there have been sent to rural convents. Without absolute irrefutable proof …” He fell silent. “Elise—you are a nurse, yes?”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been telling you. At Charité-Mitte. I’ve also approached Dr. Brandt.”

“What was his response?”

Elise shivered at the memory of being pressed up against the wall, guns trained on her heart and head. “Let’s just say that he was not about to let a mere nurse ask questions about anything.”

“But what about one nurse and a priest—and the Bishop of Berlin?”

“Bishop von Preysing would come forward?”

“The problem is, Elise, we in the Church have wanted to come forward, publicly, for some time. But the Concordat that the Vatican signed in ’thirty-three prevents any criticism of Hitler’s regime by the Catholic Church. And, on top of that, we have no proof. And without uncontestable proof, there will only be denial and subterfuge.” He rubbed his beaky nose. “You’re a nurse. A nurse at a hospital where this is happening. With your access to files, you could—”

Elise gave a grim smile. “Get all the proof Bishop von Preysing would need.”

“It’s dangerous work, Elise,” Father Licht warned. “If you’re caught …” The warning hung in the air. “Not even your mother could save you.”

Something crossed Elise’s face. In that moment, she decided she would see this through to the end, no matter what her mother might think, no matter where it might lead. “ ‘Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.’ Proverbs three-twenty-seven, yes?”